u.s. senate hearings for president obama's pick to be the new chief of the cia have wrapped up that's after interruptions by protesters over his controversial pardon america's drone program. political chaos in tunisia anti-government protests turn into violent clashes with police as the ruling is the block of the prime minister's plan to form a close coalition government. and the countdown to the next winter olympics begins its exactly one year until russia hold its first ever winter games that promises to become the most unique and most expensive in history. but not everyone is any

celebrate torrie mood russia's president overspending and sacks a key figure behind the two thousand and fourteen games. providing top news in commentary twenty four hours a day this is our team live from moscow. now from drone strikes to torture techniques brought obama's nominee for the head of the cia has faced what was supposed to be tough questions in the senate confirmation hearings but many on capitol hill already say the architect of america's drone wars was handled with kid gloves by the committee many saying he didn't face any substantial challenges on that sensitive issues however the hearing was disrupted by protesters angry at john brennan's connection with the drone program run in. said to return for

a classified session on tuesday r t is it going to change a can comments on what britain's confirmation might bring for america's drone fleet . in the shadows know more drones are moving into the mainstream was drone makers in the u.s. military pushing to defend the killing machine drones are more properly titled remotely piloted vehicles allow us to do is to project capability without projecting vulnerability in their revolutionizing warfare by allowing us to see and cue from half a world away a major drone manufacturer lockheed martin has financed an hour long documentary on drones aired recently on u.s. public television counting the technological capabilities of the killing machine from trailers like this pilots of the predator and its larger cousin the reaper have killed thousands of individual since two thousand and one using remotely piloted aircraft contrary to popular belief actually provides the greatest degree

of ethical oversight for their use this young man in pakistan would probably disagree several of his family members died at the remote hands of a drone more than a thousand other civilians were reportedly killed by u.s. drone strikes in pakistan and yemen we find ourselves murdering people in many cases children with no evidence whatsoever that they're involved in any criminal or terrorist activity the numbers should not come as a surprise considering the broad definition the obama administration gives us to who should be on their kill list the leaked memo on targeted assassinations from the us justice department suggests the us government can kill people even without evidence that they are actively plotting against america if you extend the logic or studio logic being pretty out by the white house now you come. live you might say that we're in danger of going over or getting. close to zero thought crimes

that if somebody a u.s. citizen or otherwise is believed to be thinking something that could lead to actions against united states then this illogical logic would present the idea that it would be ok for the president joe order that that person be killed the spite the u.n. raising concerns about the legality of the use of drones the u.s. is said to expand its remote control warfare setting up new drone bases across the world drama has redefined war during intervention in libya he made the case that the war powers act in a private because there was no risk to american soldiers and so under that rationale he can expand the global war while in his state of the union address queening that we don't need perpetual war for peace but it is perpetual war when you can drop bombs on any country and then claim that it's not working john brennan often referred to as the architect of the administration's drone war counts the new

opportunities for the u.s. to wage wars without risking american lives there's another reason a targeted strikes can be a wise choice to strategic consequences that inevitably come with the use of force . as we have seen deploying large armies abroad won't always be our best offense all in all the u.s. now has around ten thousand drones in its fleet not all of them carry weapons of course a lot of them are for surveillance both domestic and international there's a great push both from the administration and the drone makers to present them as america's next best thing john brennan if confirmed will soon be at the helm of the cia and no one doubts that under him the program will expand even further in washington i'm going to strip down. earlier i asked if i was all g. mohamad a professor at the university of illinois champagne urbana what he thought of this part of john brennan's testimony. i think there is a misimpression on the part of the some american people who believe that to a we take strikes to punish terrorists for past transgressions nothing could be

further from the truth we only take such actions as a last resort to save lives when there is no other alternative to taking an action that's going to mitigate that threat seemingly clear but how would you respond of that statement. respond that it's slightly correct i mean it seems is so clearly and morally straight there's been no evidence suggested of an imminent threat. of a ongoing planned attack and that in that case a u.s. citizen was struck with a druid missile for having some past involvement with the strikes the brain is just simply wrong at all it's with the record neither of congressional republicans nor congressional democrats really want to take a strong line against reading nobody wants to appear to be soft on security and so this is just another example as paul receiving the very simply no shaming in the

executive told c.b.s. . who we thought hasn't been clarified has been kept secret. and just continues to run the case with its color is really advocating its rulers. and later in the program iran gives egypt a loan to help the cash strapped state that is floundering in a political storm stay afloat this despite the tehran itself is laboring under severe economic pressure after several rounds of us backed sanctions over its nuclear program more on this just ahead. tunisia is witnessing the largest political crisis since the revolution two years ago and i government protests turned violent as police used tear gas to disperse crowds near the interior ministry earlier the violence spread to the southern city of golf south where hundreds attacked security forces with stones and petrol bombs young arrest was sparked by the assassination of the secular opposition leader.

known for his anti islamic criticism the country's prime minister moved to quell the rest by forming a coalition government bob the move was blocked by his own party who said that they had not been. altered or to use them or if national has the latest from tunis. the day after the assassination of the prominent opposition leader here in the tunisian capital it seems that temperatures are still very high and tensions are still at a very dangerous the very risky level the level that is threatening and challenging the security and stability in this country protests have been continuing throughout thursday we've seen many many people on the streets and we've been hearing them chanting and to governmental slogans i've been many clashes between police and opposition supporters again and again police has been using tear gas against protesters but not only the clashes between protesters and. opposition supporters have been going on here in tunisian capital my crew and me we've been attacked here

actually by a group of youngsters we've and the only reason for that because it was just because we filmed them and they have been feel md and i think that tells a lot about how is the situation on the ground that it could be described as something very close to chaotic we've been hearing about similar violence and similar disturbances throughout the country especially in the southern part of tunisia where the headquarters of the ruling party has been vandalized the protest may go even more violent intentions may go even further because friday will be the day of the funerals of the opposition leader also we've been hearing that the country's trade union has been calling on nash and wide strike that means that the country could be paralyzed and nothing will be open that means that the country would paralyzed and of course it will not add to general instability and insecurity

here on the ground of course it will only a great the things you know you can share your views and opinions on all of the stories we have at our t.v. dot com head online and let us know what you think about the latest tunisian protests and what it will. bring there you can see that we've put four options on the table for you to choose from now let's take a look at the opinion and how it has been divided so far right now if you look at the four options that we have a majority of those who have already voted think that tunisia will plunge deeper into unrest more than a quarter of you fear that the latest upsurge of public on rest will lead to a government crackdown on protesters almost a fifth of voters believe that the country might see another revolution and this one is change just a bit sixteen percent now of you think that the leadership is ready for political concessions we've got more stories after a short break don't go away you're watching r.t. .

technology innovation all the developments around russia. ever heard.

and live from moscow this is our team back with us it is going to be a battle between the north and the south e.u. meeting in brussels european leaders are gathering to thrash out an agreement over the union's budget for the next seven years the british prime minister david cameron is pressing for huge cuts even going as far as to veto any deal without reduced expenditure however this is fiercely opposed by southern members of the bloc that are heavily dependent on the cash from brussels. has more on the budget. we've seen some of the leaders who had arrived here already making strong statements first of all david cameron continuously saying that if the budget is not

brought down to a level that he is happy with there will be no deal we've heard from countries who are saying that they may use their veto if they are not happy such as the czech republic to simplify the of the current going on right now it would be between northern and southern countries you could say the wealthier nations versus those that actually depend more on the e.u. funding on the one hand you have countries like the u.k. germany the netherlands denmark these countries are supporting harsher cuts to the e.u. budget david cameron being the most radical and controversial taking this step now he has been demanding since november last year in two thousand and twelve that was the first today is the second since that until now he's been demanding for cuts in brussels bureaucracy for instance he wants to reduce payments of officials here and this has not gone down well with brussels officials he also wants to reduce their pensions for instance but on the other side you have those countries who are dependent on these forums and one of the loudest voices on this is

a lot of friends now he is saying and pointing a finger at the u.k. say they want cuts but at the same time they are very protective of the so-called rebate this is the money that the u.k. gets back from the e.u. as a return for their payments on farm subsidies which the u.k. does not benefit from and which france benefits a lot from you could see a lot of the national interests coming here to the forefront so france well it's certainly not happy with what if you read between the lines of would say hypocritical. that rebate is worth three point five billion euros and is seen to be wanting to tackle that point also the u.k. is coming into this summit this is the first time since that out referendum that he said that he would pose the question of whether he should remain in the twenty seven reelected in the twenty fifth. of course this is a possibility of a creating even more tension in the u.k. with the costs and benefits of actually being a member of the e.u.

interpreted by the other members. not being a team player in this regard and also as this talk is happening talking about budget cuts on the e.u. level we see the budget cuts on a more local ground level we've seen the protests continuing even until today people very angry at the cuts imposed on them on their livelihoods of their pensions their potential jobs while the e.u. cannot agree upon a budget of their own. and while leaders are fighting over where to cut if there's one item that's apparently immune from any austerity measures the e.u. is reportedly planning to spend over two million euro to wage a so-called propaganda blitz on its critics in the social media. from the u.k. independence party says the project would have violated one of the main principles of the european parliament. they decided that they're going to train in how staff in the run up to the european elections are twenty fourteen train those people to

go online to look at facebook twitter other social media sites and to correct that's their word not mine to correct any misapprehensions that may exist about the european union and i have to say the fact that it's a parliament that is doing this that is using taxpayers' money to do this says a lot about the institutions that the whole point about parliaments is the person is it's him a chair of parliament he's the speaker in westminster he's the chairman in other parliaments around the world but he and all the rest of the staff are supposed to be neutral they're not supposed to take any political position at all and the fact that the parliament decided it's going to spend money time and resources doing this shows you that frankly they're no better than a banana republic and this is all the mcgarvie would do or someone like that so i think many people outside would be shocked by it having worked there myself for thirteen years i'm not surprised at all they are really really scared they're

scared that from north to south to east to west all over the european union citizens are saying we've never voted for this thing to become the united states of europe we've never asked to have the majority of our laws made somewhere else and we want to do something about it so they're scared and they're fighting back it's now exactly one year until the opening of the two thousand and fourteen winter olympic games in russia giant clocks have been erected in the country's largest cities to track the countdown to the event that will be held in the black sea resort city of sochi the main celebrations to mark the countdown have taken place in itself rounding off a spectacular gala show aarti zander farmer is in the city for us to see how the preparations for the games are going and to gauge the mood there. but he she can see that if the spirit has won and she puts on a few weeks like the city sky to speak yeah yeah that was the spectacular skating

show but it's not actually ok at the beach games are pretty deep stuff a nice time for several reasons and this new will be the first to speak out with it except for the environment this is a big power caves in the finest light of the x.p. these games are all to be very compact you will be able to just jump with the chinese within thirty minutes you can be in the mindset of my piano to enjoy the fine events particularly nice it is that easy being built from scratch something very unusual and not tricky to get three cups of skanks hope a nice expensive gifts me i think it's something that the billion dollars but if you do look around you can see what money can buy the organizing committee says it so it will be ready in twenty. four to zander farmer amongst the v. spectacular fireworks there in such a meanwhile the olympic city comes under close scrutiny from russian authorities this as president vladimir putin hasn't personally been checking the olympic venues

and says he's generally happy with what he saw he did however fire one top official for delays and cost overruns and construction work following this rather abrupt conversation literature in your view are there any cost overruns yes a serious increase in costs but since they use their own funds for the construction on phones. is financed by the funds of christmas. who's the shareholder of crossing point spread bank so it's largely finance at the expense of sperm bank yes and these cost overruns are paid for by sperm bank yes it's been one of the costs this whole facility cost. what's the overrun with which you're initially be reassessing the amount of the loan. what's a rough estimate. of the initial price was one point two billion. being one point two billion has turned into eight billion yes well done good work let's move on. of course interesting exchange there are two we'll be monitoring the developments in

saatchi on air and online as the city readies for one of the world's biggest and most prestigious sporting events. the british government is considering using so-called black boxes to monitor private citizens internet use they say in the interest of safety the move has been criticised as a pointless invasion of privacy and a car the deputy director of the big brother watch organization says the new measures were to do nothing to catch people who pose a real security threat. the u.k. government seems to think that it's necessary to monitor the communications of every person in great britain well other than actually looking for the people who

are actually committing crimes they're going to drive those people further and further underground of the internet and they're only going to capture the the innocent and the incompetent as far as i'm concerned not by any means saying that communications data isn't important but when you have the director general of m i five talking about the evidence that was used to make this spill and calling it pretty heroic assumptions that we've been made that the m i five obviously going to need this information and will react to this information if they saying that this bill isn't based on fact it's based on fantasy full. imitations of facts and this is why we need to go and have a very hard look at this bill get more evidence have a much further in-depth consultation to actually get the facts about what is needed and how it can be done. syria's capital damascus has witnessed some of its most intense clashes in months rebels attacked government forces in an attempt to seize control of key approaches to the city center the fighting came despite an earlier

offer by the opposition leader of more team who wanted to negotiate with president assad the deputy damascus could also be willing to talk according to its ally iran whose foreign minister was quoted at the egypt sponsored islamic summit but syria tribune editor in chief ali mohamed splits within the opposition make stability unlikely even if they do bring down assad it's just i mean it's just like the rules of. the nicer ones different than it is now and it's not really you have to do the actually. the right even with the u. s. listed. on. the market. because the. i don't think it's going to probably. not be because lucian is. believe that the. sort of the odds of winning and the most important part is that these are the

princes and the will if you created people they are not full of the shoes they are not martyrs for freedom they are just workplaces and the coalition will only be able to do what its founder and i mean finally seemed. to do it and if they don't do that they will lose the financing they lose the support so they have to do this and simply have they both know how to go and they cannot because they are not united and they don't have the same view was that it's a big mess. now let's take a look at some other stories making headlines around the world for you this hour in los angeles police have found a burnt out truck belonging to the main suspect in the killing of three people earlier officers injured two bystanders while trying to ambush christopher dorner an ex policeman dorner went on a shooting spree in an apparent attack act of revenge after getting fired from the l.a.p.d. so far he has a vague arrest specially officers are now hunting him door to door. rival

palestinian factions hamas and fatah are now in talks about forming a coalition government according to the leader of hamas khaled mashal also mentioned that he and his counterpart mahmoud abbas are now preparing for elections long postponed because of the feud between the two parties following a military conflict in two thousand and seven him on pushed me of us led the fatah out of the gaza strip mr itself there is a separate government. in zambia at least a fifty three people have died in what appears to be one of the worst traffic accidents in the country's history over twenty others were taken to nearby hospitals the crash occurred when an s.u.v. collided with a truck sending it into the path of an oncoming bus. rescue workers are struggling to enter the wreckage to search for survivors. a police chief and three of his a bodyguard have been killed by

a roadside bomb in northern afghanistan three others were wounded in the attack which authorities believe deliberately targeted the police vehicle this comes after taliban militants claimed responsibility for downing a helicopter in the east of the country nobody was seriously injured in that incident. iran has extended a helping hand to egypt offering a loan to the cash strapped country and also plans to invest more in sudan despite the fact that tehran itself is subject to severe economic sanctions imposed by the u.s. and the e.u. over its nuclear program earlier economist and commentator kyon mokhtari told r.t. that egypt had no choice but to accept help from where it can get it but i think egypt has has made it quite clear that it wants to go in so where it stands but the muslim brotherhood has come to the realisation with account. as

important as powerful as iran in the region and. they will have to be given take and should they decide to such a confident confrontational course where they are on. it would prove counterproductive so egypt is in dire straits and it will require assistance from any number of muslim countries to get back on its feet again. and after the break r.t. investigates how video games can affect your state of mind stay with us for that.

wealthy british style. markets why not canada. find out what's really happening to the global economy with max cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report on r t. v need to kill each other online it's nothing personal just business.

a whole industry has emerged to encourage gamers to take part in large tournaments money the same and even sponsorships await the cyber athletes who rise to the dump we have already outdone the music market of the number of online gamers around nine million people in some two to three years there will be around fourteen million of them. twelve year old alexander fold in from kiev gone so deeply immersed in online games. that force is the only way to get him to pay attention. for these people the real world is simply not enough so they bring the diversions of virtual reality into their real life. my wife maria. i deal with the weapons psychologists and psychiatrists argue whether or not the human mind can be affected by computer games and if so which part of the

brain is responsible. actions have a very negative impact on a person. this is the same in the cortex is responsible for developing addictions to what extent. zone and christine both twenty two met through online gaming during a tournament called point blank she played against sergei but couldn't beat him using a keyboard mouse but she managed to defeat him offline while he was. christina turned out to be stronger and. we started talking.